


The Gates of Disorder

by SneakyCustard



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Angst, Car Accidents, Character Death, Depression, F/M, Hateful words, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Introspection of the soul, Kylo Ren is a Mess, Memories, Mild Blood, My First AO3 Post, My First Fanfic, Not Beta Read, Sorta Time Skips but not really, Soul-Searching, Underage Drinking, World Between Worlds but not really, millenium falcon is a car
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:07:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24727951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SneakyCustard/pseuds/SneakyCustard
Summary: Kylo Ren wakes up alone on a strange, deserted beach. Trapped in a strange, dark land full of hidden secrets, he must confront the darkness of his past in order to escape.On Hold: This work will be my NaNo challenge and updates will come in December.
Relationships: Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	1. The Beach

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first story on A03! I've been lurking around (obsessively) reading all of the amazing Reylo content on here and decided to contribute to the fandom. I've never shared any of my writing with anyone so I'm nervous but excited to finally put myself out there. I'm still figuring out the rules around tagging and trigger warnings so let me know if I've missed something and I am open to tips and advice. I don't want to spoil things too badly so I'll update tags as I go along and make sure to apply trigger warnings when applicable. 
> 
> This story is an idea I've had kicking around my head for years and almost did for NaNo last year with original characters. I couldn't quite figure it out so I decided to flush it out as a fanfiction instead. This story will eventually cover some relatively dark topics that may be uncomfortable for some readers so be warned. I don't have an idea for how long this will be but I'll try to update regularly.

> "Oh, it's time to make amends
> 
> You've been burnin' the candle at both ends
> 
> Oh, it's time to make amends
> 
> You've been burnin' the candle at both ends”
> 
> _Candles_ \- Dirty Vegas

* * *

The first thing I became aware of was the surging roar of the ocean. I heard it rush in and out, in and out, pulsing like the Earth’s heart. My body was only the vaguest concept of one, weightless and formless in the void I was in. Where was I? What was I? Who was I?

Sensation slowly came to me as my body rebuilt itself back into reality. First came a sharp, creeping tingle in my finger tips. The icy sparks of pain slowly spread up from my fingers to my wrists and forearms, then my biceps and finally into my shoulders. It was an excruciating agony but I could not move against it, could not speak, could not scream. It was like a numb limb waking up but amplified to a thousand, a million. For what felt like a thousand years all I could feel was the pain. The cold spread across my chest and then, finally, it touched my heart. With a shuddering jolt my heart started racing and thudding in my chest. My lungs unlocked and I took a shuddering breath.

I suffered for an eternity before the pain started to fade. Eventually I became aware of more than my aching body and could feel the surface I was lying on. It was uneven and hit every pressure point on my body. With each breath I took the surface I was on seemed to shift and I could hear small _chinking_ sounds.

The roaring surf rattled my ear drums as it slammed again and again against the beach. I could feel the foaming tide break around my body. Each time the surf receded I could feel the drawing suction of the water. It reminded me of when I went to the beach as a small child and was letting the water wash over my feet. As the water pulled back I could feel the sand collapse and flow away from under my feet as the ocean reclaimed its due. The sensation had terrified me. At that moment, five-year old me truly felt the sheer vastness of the ocean, how deep and unknowable it was. It had sent me screaming to my mother, crying that the ocean was trying to eat me. She had never been able to figure out what I had been so terrified of and I had lacked the ability to put the profound fear into words. I still couldn’t quite put my pulse on the fear, but it had always remained. I felt it now.

The ocean was sneaking closer and I needed to move. I clutched my fingers into the surface beneath me. Stones. I was laying on smooth stones, each roughly the size of a flattened golf ball. I needed to see. I needed to know where I was. How had I ended up at the beach?

Lifting my eyelids was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. They felt like weights were attached to each individual eyelash and refused to budge at first. Slowly they fluttered open, staying up for breath’s space of time at first, then longer the more I tried. My vision was blurry and my surroundings were vague. I blinked and blinked, eyes staying open longer with each attempt. My vision slowly came into focus like a Polaroid developing. I blinked and my hand came into sharp focus.. It was the same hand I woke up to every day. Broad palms, firm and strong, with long, blunt fingers. Hands too large and too clumsy. Hands meant for beating and bruising and maiming enemies on the battlefield in an era now long past. I flexed my fingers into the stones again and picked one up.

It was a black stone. They were all black stones, hundreds of thousands of them spreading along the sandless beach. They were all roughly the same shape and size as the stones used in massage parlors. My fingers felt along the water-smoothed stone and I felt my thumb catch on an unexpected roughness. I rubbed over the spot and flipped it over to see what it was.

_You’re Nothing_

The words were inscribed in neat calligraphy. My own neat calligraphy. My own words. Words I would never forget I had said nor ever forgive myself for saying. The words were carved neatly into the black stone to reveal a blood-red crystal within. They almost looked as if they were bleeding out of the stone itself, a raw and angry wound.

I dropped the stone with a soul-shaking shudder. I needed to get up. I pushed my torso up with a deep groan. Instantly my body lit up with excruciating pain. My breath heaved with the strain as my arms struggled to hold my body up. I’d never felt this weak in my adult life. I had spent two hours every day in the gym for years honing my muscles to peak form and was proud of the power I had built up over the years. Now, though, I felt as weak as a day old kitten. My arms trembled, my knees protested. My heart tha-thumped tha-THUMPED THA-THUMPED as I struggled to get up. Finally, I pulled myself to my feet with a monumental burst of effort. I stood unsteadily on the shifting stones with my hands braced on my knees and waited for equilibrium to reestablish itself.

Once I’d gathered my bearings I took in my surroundings. Where the fuck was I? The last thing I could remember was pouring a glass of whiskey at home, in Chandrilla, hundreds of miles from the closest beach. Everything here was dark. Was it nighttime? Had I blacked out again and somehow journeyed across the country to the beach? That couldn’t be right though. Regardless of whatever I happened to get high on I was more likely to find some pathetic, peroxied gold-digger at a club and take her home to fuck in the luxury of my penthouse. I would never, ever, go to the _ocean_ , not the _ocean_ with its sucking hunger, with its need to draw me down, down, down into the depths below. 

A shard of uneasiness was building in me the longer I looked around. The sky above was _empty._ There was nothing, literally _nothing_ in the sky but a yawning void. Even in the city, despite it’s endless light pollution, you could still see the brightest of stars peeking through. Yet here there were no stars, no planets, no planes or satellites or any other various things that polluted the sky of the modern era. No, it was pure _nothing_. I could feel it in my bones, the cold, sucking emptiness. It called to me like a song, luring me to let go, to fly up and lose myself in it.

It took everything I had to pull my eyes away from the void. My Adam’s apple repeatedly bobbed in my throat as sudden nausea hit my stomach. Once the nausea settled I took care to avoid looking at the sky again and instead took in my surroundings. There was nothing. All I could see was the black stone beach stretching endlessly to either side of me before being swallowed by a thick, swirling mist. It was dark, yet there seemed to be some sort of ambient light. It was a weak light but enough to see by. The light seemed to come from the mist itself, which swirled around me like smoke. I shivered with unease. I looked down at myself and realized that I was completely naked.

“What the fuck?” I muttered. My words sounded flat to my ears, as if the mist kept the soundwaves for echoing outwards but rebounded back to me instead. I covered my genitals and whipped around wildly, instinct making me look for paparazzi just itching to get a shot of the mighty Kylo Ren in the literal flesh. But there was nobody. Nobody at all.

“I swear to god if Hux set this up I’ll fucking kill him,” I growled. I took a step forward and heard a whistling sound from the sky. An object flew past my face like a bullet and landed on the ground at my feet. It was a new stone glowing red from the heat of entry. The surf washed over it and it steamed as the water cooled it. Curious, I picked it up.

_I swear to god if Hux set this up I’ll fucking kill him_

I dropped it in shock. I looked around at the stones around me, and realized that they all had words, all of them. I snatched a handful of them up and looked at each of them.

_I’ll fucking kill you bitch_

_Who cares if they die, as long as it increases our profit margin?_

_Your son is gone. He was weak and foolish like his father, so I destroyed him_

_I’ll rip his throat out if he doesn’t comply_

I stared at the words with growing horror. I read stone after stone after stone, each inscribed with hateful words and hateful thoughts. Words and thoughts that I myself had said at various points of my life. Words of hatred and violence and despair perfectly recorded on each rock. I stared in shock at the beach spreading endlessly before me. There were so many of them.

My fingers went numb. I dropped the stones and started to walk, picking a direction without a thought. I stared straight ahead, unwilling to look up at the dead sky or down at the beach of hateful words. There had to be something up ahead, some sign or building or anything that could tell me where I was.

I walked and walked and walked but nothing changed. It was only the dark sky, the mist, the hateful rocks and the eternal sea. It continued it’s endless dance as the lukewarm water repeatedly brushed against my ankles. I knew that eventually I would need to leave the beach and head inland but I had this feeling burning inside that what I found there wasn’t something I wanted to see. The feeling of this place was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. It was malevolent, angry, chittering with madness at my presence. I had the distinct feeling that I was being watched, judged and found wanting.

I walked for what felt like several hours. Despite my nudity I wasn’t cold. The air itself was tepid and still and without a breeze to break up the monotony. My feet were quickly becoming bruised from the stones, despite their smoothness. My toenails began to crack and bleed from each misplaced step and my calves were beginning to shake from balancing on the shifting surface. More than once I slipped and nearly tumbled, only righting myself at the last second.

“There’s got to be something, anything,” I muttered desperately. There wasn’t, though. Nothing changed no matter how long I walked. Had I even moved at all? Or was I trapped on the universe’s smallest planet and had walked around and around it again on a never ending loop? I stumbled once, twice. My legs grew even shakier with the effort of moving until, at last, my legs gave out. 

I collapsed to the ground and my kneecaps screamed with the pain of impact. I fell onto my back and just breathed through the exhaustion. I couldn’t even bother to wipe away the sweat dripping from my brow. I don’t know how long I lay there but the tide was beginning to creep closer. The tide climbed higher and higher up the beach, first hitting my ankles, then my shins, then my bruised knees. A sharp tang was rising in the air that tasted like a penny on my tongue. The water finally hit my fingertips and it struck me that it felt wrong. It felt slicker, thicker, warmer than ocean water. I raised my hand to look at the water and screamed.

Blood. My fingers were coated with _blood_. I scrambled away from the rising tide of gore as I tried to wipe the blood off of my fingers. My lower body was covered in the nasty, red stuff, shockingly vivid against my pale skin. I gagged at the thick, coppery stench that I now recognized for what it was. I watched and saw how what I’d taken as black water crested into vivid red foam. The bloody bubbles fizzed and popped against the rocks and I bent over to retch.

“Ok. Ok, ok, ok. This is fucked. What the fuck is going on? Where the fuck am I?” I muttered. I clutched my hair and scrambled up the beach and away from the ocean. I had to get away from the blood, the _smell._ The roar of the bloody sea chased me as I ran. What was happening? Was I insane? Had I finally gone insane?

“HELLO! IS ANYBODY OUT THERE? HELLO!” I screamed. “SOMEBODY HELP ME!”

Nobody replied. I ran and ran and gradually the beach began to fade away. The layers of stones thinned out the further from the bloody water I ran until soon I was running on hard packed earth. The sound of the ocean faded as if swallowed by the thick mist that now enveloped me. My surroundings were completely obscured by it and I had no idea where I was heading. 

I was so tired. I was more tired than I’d ever been in my entire life. Not even after the worst of my drug binges had I ever felt like this. It wasn’t just the physical exhaustion but something deeper, purer. This place was sucking some vital essence out of me the longer I lingered. The darkness above hungered for me, wanted me. I could feel it in my bones. 

I found myself watching the ground below me as I walked. It was the only thing worth seeing at any rate, unless I wanted to imagine shapes in the drifting fog. The dirt was slate gray and cracked from drought. A few weeds poked up here and there but otherwise it was devoid of life.

“Ok, Kylo. Clearly you’re just tripping out. No big deal, it happens to the worst of us. It was Hux, he always did like those weird designer drugs. It’s just a bad trip, you just gotta ride this out, ok? This is fine, everything is fine, you’re fine—

“BASTARD!”

A woman’s scream ripped the night apart. I whipped around in fright, my heart racing at the sign of anyone, anything being out here. Where had the voice come from? Where was she?

“FUCK YOU!” another voice, a man’s this time. It sounded familiar, was it Mitaka? Dad? That asshole Poe? I turned around again. The fog distorted all sounds. It was like the voice was coming from all angles.

“I HATE YOU!” another voice. Mom? Auntie Amilyn?

“MURDEROUS SNAKE!”

“YOU’RE A MONSTER”

“GO TO HELL!”

“I HOPE YOU DIE!”

“DIE! FUCKING DIE ALREADY!”

“JUST FUCKING KILL YOURSELF!”

“PATHETIC ASSHOLE!”

There were so many voices, the voices of everyone I had ever met. The voices screamed and jibbered madly with hateful words about me. They were so loud it hurt. I spun around, trying to find where they were coming from, to make them stop.

“Stop!” I commanded as the shouts grew even louder.

“YOUR OWN PARENTS CAN’T STAND YOU!”

“YOU DESERVE TO DIE!”

“NO ONE WOULD EVEN MISS YOU!”

“STOP!” I yelled. I clasped my hands to my ears but I couldn’t shut out the voices, the voices that had always been there inside but now so loud, so loud and around me and tearing me down to my bones. The screams grew until it was just a tidal wave of noise that threatened to drag me under. The sea was back and coming for me to pull me down down down into the depths again. They were here to drag me away, clawing, snatching monsters that wanted me to bleed, wanted me to die.

“GO AWAY!” I screamed.

“MURDEREREVILMONSTERDEVILDIENOWDIEDIEDIEJUSTKILLYOURSELFDIEEEEEEE!”

I blindly bolted forward to get away from them. My eyes were screwed shut and my ears were jammed deep into my ears and I just ran. They followed. Why couldn’t they leave me alone? Where were they? Why couldn’t I see where they were? I ran and ran until I couldn’t anymore. My legs seized up in vicious cramps and I fell to the dirt. I curled my body into a ball and whimpered as the screams continued. Despite the pain, exhaustion sucked me under and I knew nothing more.

* * *

The screams were gone. 

I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious. At some point I had rolled over onto my stomach and my face was resting on a prickly weed. I jerked away from the stinging pain and sat up. I took stock of my body. Though I wasn’t physically exhausted anymore, inside I felt worse than before. Was I getting sick? My wrists hurt terribly, probably injured when I fell. I rubbed at them to try and ease the pain. I was more thirsty than I’d ever been in my entire life. Yet, if water were put before me now I didn’t think I would have the strength to lift the glass to drink it. 

I was so ready for whatever this was to be over. Was I right about this being a drug trip? I was starting to think not. No drug would create something like this, this complex and tactile. Was it just a dream? Had I been hit by a car and was now in a coma? This was insane. Had I finally cracked? 

Just then a child giggled. I snapped my head up and saw a small boy standing about ten feet away from me. Well, I saw part of him as his body was the vaguest outline in the swirling mist. I raised my hand to wave and he turned and started to run away from me.

“Wait!” I croaked. I scrambled back to my feet. It was somebody, _somebody_. Someone else in this endless fog, this aching, empty place. I could hear his small feet on the dirt, and could occasionally see glimpses of him before the mist covered him again. I followed his laughter as he led me onward.

“Kid, wait!” I cried. I was so desperate for another human’s presence I could cry. As I chased him I would get close, close enough to see the boy’s curling dark hair, the bare feet with dirty soles. At the last second he would manage to slip away. I could see he was in a blue cable knit sweater and khaki pants that struck me as familiar. Hadn’t I had an outfit like that as a child? I drew close enough to grasp at that sweater and could practically sense how the fabric would feel on my fingertips. But then I blinked and he was gone, running to my left this time. I veered and started running as fast as I could push my body.

“Hurry!” the boy cried. “We’re gonna be late!”

“Kid, please stop! Where are we, please?” I cried.

“Come on, he’s waiting for us!” he cried. I was drawing close again. I was going to catch him and shake some answers out of him. I stretched my arm forward and felt my fingertips brush the sweater when my foot caught onto a crack in the dirt. I went sprawling on to my stomach, my chin striking the dirt enough that my teeth clacked together. No, not dirt. It was asphalt. I groaned as the pain rang through my skull. My palms were scraped raw and I had stones embedded in the skin of my palms. I picked them out and watched the blood well up. My wrists ached even more. I felt the scrapes across my whole body, even on my penis. I didn’t have words for how much that had hurt. I desperately needed clothing.

“KID!” I screamed. The giggle again, growing distant. I pulled myself up once again. My skin felt like it was on fire. I took a step and nearly fell again. The top of my foot was completely shredded and I felt a deep ache in the bone. I could see the skin was already starting to purple and swell. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream.

I was on a road. It was a crumbling old highway with faded yellow lines. I started stumbling down it after the kid. He was my best shot at figuring out what was going on. There was something familiar about the kid though, but I couldn’t place it. It was something akin to deja vu but different. I followed the road and his giggling, which seemed to grow apart in frequency. 

“No, no, no! Don’t leave me kid, please!” I screamed. I tried to run faster but my damned foot was throbbing, it was probably broken and each step I took was causing further damage and—

There was a car. It unfolded out of the mist as if materialized by it. But it wasn’t just any car, no, not just any. No one could call the Falcon just a car. The 1965 Mustang 2+2 Fastback was a thing of beauty despite how aged it was. Once a beautiful turquoise, it had long since faded to a dingy silver by the time Han had won it in a poker game. I had spent my childhood in that car, perched in the fold-down back seat before my growth spurt forced us into a station wagon. It damn near killed Han to drive the station wagon and I couldn’t blame him for it. My earliest memory was of Han sitting me on his lap and steering the car while he gunned the Falcon down the open road. The windows were always wide open to let the wind in while Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd blared from the speakers. There was nothing like being in the Falcon. Han would yell his signature WAHOO and tear down the road and as a kid I would swear that we were flying, actually flying like the car’s namesake. This car held every good memory that I’d ever had of my father. Something about that car would bring a grace to our relationship that didn’t exist outside of it. When we were together in that car all of the fights and misunderstandings blew away behind us on the open road.

All thoughts of the boy I’d been following were now lost. My hands were trembling as I reached out to touch the trunk. Part of me couldn’t believe it was here, really here. It should have been impossible, though. Nothing was left of the Falcon, not anymore. It lay rotting in a junkyard in southern California, totaled and useless and covered in blood. Yet, beneath my fingers it felt real, so very real. The paint felt exactly the same, rough and flaking in spots, smooth in others. It even smelled the same, hot metal under a summer sun, grease and exhaust and freedom.

I lifted my fingers away and the lid popped up with a click. Startled, I lightly lifted the trunk up and peered into the trunk. It was completely empty of the tools and bottles of whiskey that usually littered the space. Instead there was a stack of clothing neatly folded with a hand lettered note that said “wear me.” I pulled up the shirt and saw it was a sinfully soft gray t-shirt. I was so grateful to see clothing I almost wept. I pulled the shirt on and followed it with the pants, an equally soft pair of black pajama pants. No shoes though, but this was more than enough. The vulnerable part inside of me settled down a bit now that I was clothed.

I closed the trunk and walked along the side of the car. My fingers trailed along the side of it as I dreamily took in the sight of it. As I slowly walked to the passenger door memories of working under the hood with Han flooded me. We used to spend so many hours in the garage working on this old bird while he drank can after can of Schlitz. I could almost smell the hoppy musk of that piss-water lingering in the misty air.

“I missed you,” I whispered to the car. I reached the passenger door and with a huge breath of courage opened the door. I gasped as I was hit with a wave of scent so potently nostalgic my knees felt weak with it. Han’s cologne and aftershave spilled beer and motor oil and something deeper. It was so strong I had to cling to the door and regain my bearings. One sharp jab of a sob erupted from me.

I was shaking as I slid into the car seat. The car rocked under my weight as I settled into the familiar worn seat . I pulled the door in and shut it and just…sat. My chest was heaving from repressed sobs and I wiped my sweating hands on the pants. It was the _same_. The dashboard was the same. The radio was the same. The shifting knob was the same chrome skull that Han had installed at one point. And there, dangling from the rear view mirror, was the dice.

My trembling hand reached out to touch the golden dice before I realized I was doing so . Han had always called them his luck. I used to play with them on road trips while Han and Leia sat in the front seat singing to Janis Joplin or Fleetwood Mac. I loved nothing more than holding the dice up to the light and watch the sunlight glint off of them. I reached out to touch the dice before me now and sent them swinging gently. Despite the darkness around me, the dice glinted just as they did all those years ago when my family was whole and carefree.

I pulled my hand back and with a sudden jolt the car started moving. The seatbelt pulled itself across my body and snapped into place. My head whipped around to look at the driver’s seat and I shouted with fright. Han was in the driver’s seat. A young and vibrant Han, the one I remembered from my childhood. He wore his standard Levi’s and white t-shirt and the ever present leather bomber jacket, the very same jacket he had been buried in. I saw his hands, no longer wrinkled from age but smooth and strong, and followed them up his tanned arms and then up to his shoulder. Finally, inexorably, my eyes landed on his face. He was staring ahead, his eyes alert with mischief, his elbow perched casually on the open window sill. The wind blew wisps of his feathery hair around his face while his lips stretched into his familiar smirk.

“D-Dad?” I asked. He turned to me and the smirk grew into a genuine smile. He gave me a wink and turned his eyes back to the road.

“Hey kid.”


	2. The Car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trapped in a nightmare, Ben is confronted with memories of his father. He struggles to understand what is happening to him and runs into someone he didn't expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally got through chapter 2. The world does not foster creativity for me right now, but I powered through. Enjoy!
> 
> Trigger warnings are listed in the End Notes. If I missed any let me know, I try to be mindful but I don't really have any personal triggers so things I may not realize are triggers could slip through unintentionally.

> Give me the dust of my father
> 
> Stand on the face of the ancients
> 
> Bare the secret flesh of time itself
> 
> Follow me… I've come so far, I'm behind again
> 
> Follow me… I wish so hard, I'm there again
> 
> Follow me…
> 
> Follow me…
> 
> _Circle_ \- Slipknot

The human invention known as language is an infinitesimally complex construct. Thousands of words can be compiled and arranged to describe what you’re feeling or thinking or doing. We can name not just objects like trees, rocks and sky, but also the deeper, complex thoughts our species alone was capable of. We had discovered a way to describe a feeling, a concept, a vibe. However, despite the billions of combinations at my disposal, if I were given a million years to find the words I could never begin to describe how hearing those two words would feel. “Hey Kid”.

How many times in my life had I heard that exact phrase? Probably too many times to count. That number was inscribed and recorded in my heart alone. Despite marrying my mother, Han was what my mother called a “wanderer at heart”. I just called it good old-fashioned negligence but what do I know about raising a child? Jack shit, that's what. After a fight with Leia Han would take off in the middle of the night and disappear to chase cheap thrills and then show up months later with an easy grin slapped on his face and a charming excuse. He would give Leia some trinket and a big kiss and then pat my head while saying “Hey Kid” and he was let back into the fold without a second thought. He would always swear that it was the last time he would leave on his word as a scoundrel. He never did keep that promise.

“Han…Dad…how are you here?” I asked. 

“Are you excited kid?” Han asked. His voice was laid back and oddly happy. The tone was honest and lacked the layers of bullshit he usually tacked on to charm his way through life. It was that special tone he reserved only for my mother and me.

“What? Excited for what? What is going on Han?” I demanded. “What the fuck is this? How are you here?” Han just chuckled and grinned as if I had told the funniest joke he’d ever heard. He didn’t seem to see the empty purgatory we were driving through. His hand steadily guided the car along the desolate highway as if it were any of the hundreds of highways he’d cruised down. His eyes were blind to the phantom fences or broken down mailboxes hidden in the mist. The only thing with color and life around us was _him_.

Dad reached into the back seat and pulled two beer cans out. He handed me one with a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. I looked down at it. Schlitz. Han’s signature drink. Almost every picture I had of Han had him clutching a can in his hand. It was ice cold and beaded with condensation. I ran my thumb over the logo and collected the icy droplets on it. I brought my thumb to my mouth to taste it. I shivered as the metallic cooler taste coated my tongue. He gave me a wink and cracked his open.

Pure excitement exploded inside of me. I had never had a beer before. Mommy would kill us both if she found out. I looked at Daddy to make sure it was ok. He gave me a nod of permission and I cracked my open as well.

“Don’t tell you mom about this. She’d skin me alive if she found out,” he said with a chuckle. I watched his throat work as he took a big swig of the pale gold liquid. He smacked his lips with satisfaction.

“I won’t! I promise!” I said eagerly. It was a heady feeling to have a secret between just the two of us. I felt so grown up, like a man, just like my daddy. I sniffed the beer and the fizz and smell stung my nose but Daddy loved it so it must be good, right? I took a tentative sip.

“Bleck!” I shouted, spitting the beer out. It was so bitter! Daddy roared with laughter and took another large swig of his beer.

“This tastes like skunk pee!” I cried out. That sent Daddy into further peals of laughter. I glared at the can like it had personally insulted me. This is what Daddy drank every day? Why? Was it some weird grown-up trick? No wonder Mommy didn’t want me drinking this stuff!

“It’s a rather acquired taste, son,” he said. “Trust me, you’ll learn to like it someday.”

I giggled and took another tentative sip. Knowing what to expect made it go down easier this time. I sat there taking the occasional bitter sip and watched the scenery pass by. We were heading north of Hosnia through the large plains of grass that marked the northern border. I could see actual real-life farms passing by in the distance complete with classic red barns and cows and all the things you didn’t see in the city. Everything was flat and bright like an oil painting. The vivid blue sky fought for dominance against the brightness of the yellow grass and made my eyes water from the intensity. I felt as if we were traveling to a whole other planet. It filled me with a feeling much akin to awe and threatened to overflow my heart into bursting. Something about it made me realize why Daddy always liked to leave. It was the sight of something different, something new, that drove his spirit to drive off in the middle of the night. What was a family and a house in a quiet neighborhood compared to the allure of the unknown? I took another sip of the beer. It still tasted like skunk pee.

“How far until we reach the camp?” I asked after a few minutes. We were heading to Camp Ewok where Daddy and his friends spent a week at every year going back to the 70s. No moms allowed. This was the first year I was allowed to go and I couldn’t be more excited. I had grown up with stories about the adventures they would have at that camp and I knew this trip would be epic. Someday I would grow up and tell my kids about the first time I went camping.

“About three more hours. We’re heading for the mountains near Endor. Uncle Chewie is probably already there setting up and embracing his inner bigfoot,” Daddy said. I giggled as I thought of my dad’s big bear-like best friend walking around the woods scaring hikers.

“Who else is gonna be there Daddy?” I asked.

“Chewie of course, and Lando in that ridiculous camper of his. I told that damn fool painting it metallic purple with silver flames was a tacky as hell but that’s Lando for you. He’s gotta transport his capes somehow, I suppose. Luke may come too but I wouldn’t hold my breath, you know how flaky he is. Kes is bringing Poe so you two goons get to share a tent,” Han said. I bounced in my seat, excited when I heard Poe was coming. He was my bestest friend in the whole wide world even though he lived in a different city. 

“Why didn’t Mr. Threepio come? He’s a boy too,” I asked. Daddy snorted.

“That old fusspot vowed never to step foot in those woods again after those baby bears decided he was their new mommy. He’s just lucky he was able to get away from the real mommy when she came back to check on things. I’ve never seen a man run so fast,” Daddy told me. I giggled at the thought of Mr. Threepio running. He was always so proper.

As the hours passed the golden grass sea made way for shrubs and small trees. The car began to incline upwards as the flatness of the land transitioned to hills. I could only gape as every inch of the world around me changed into things I had only seen on TV or in books. It made me realize just how big this whole world is and how little of it I’d seen. I felt so small in the most wonderful way. 

“Whatcha thinking about kid?” Daddy asked me after a while.

“I dunno,” I mumbled with a shrug. I didn't know how to put it into words. How could I explain the smallness I felt? I barely understood it myself.

“Nah, come on kid. Penny for your thoughts?” he urged.

“Well…I was just thinking the world sure is big,” I said after a moment.

“That it is. Bigger than you even know. There’s so much to see and do, more than can fit into one lifetime,” Daddy said with a small sigh.

“Is that why you go away all the time?” I asked. “To try and see everything?”

Daddy went quiet at that. I felt stupid. I shouldn’t have talked about him leaving. It was something Mommy and Daddy never talked about in front of me. They only talked at night when they thought I was sleeping, not knowing their yelling always woke me up. I would sneak out and crouch by their bedroom door and listened to the muffled shouts. Then I would scurry away when I heard approaching footsteps and watch out the window as Daddy peeled out of the driveway in the Falcon as Mommy cried in her room. I would watch the lights of the car drive further and further away and would wonder when I would next see him again.

“I guess that’s a good way to see it. I was never one to sit still in one place for long. Your mother was always the staid one. Likes to fight the cause from her home turf. Your old man has more of the wandering spirit,” he said. I nodded.

“I want to be a wanderer like you. Maybe we could go together on an adventure!” I said, bouncing in my seat. Daddy huffed a laugh.

“Someday kid, once I convince the Princess you can handle breathing less rarefied air,” he muttered bitterly. “I’m just glad she let you out of the castle to come camping, I almost expected her to hire security for you.” 

“I’m glad too, Daddy. I don’t like it when you go away so I’m glad I got to come too!” I cried excitedly. I looked at Daddy but he wasn’t smiling. Did I say the wrong thing again? I always did. It seemed like anytime I said something it was wrong, wrong, wrong. I shouldn’t have mentioned him going away. Was he going to go away again? Why couldn’t he stay with me and Mommy? Was it because of me? I shouldn’t have said anything. Thunder crashed.

It was storming outside. The mountains were looming before us, the sun shining brightly on its peak and the skies were still pure blue, but it was dark and raining around the car. It wasn’t supposed to be raining, it hadn’t rained when we went camping. Blue skies and fluffy clouds, that’s all the heavens offered us that week. But it was night now, and the storm was raging wildly in the darkness around us. A lightning bolt cracked the sky open and a rumbling wave of thunder shuddered through the car. My mind was swirling and loose with bitter coffee thoughts. That’s what Leia always called them: bitter coffee thoughts. I had plenty of those, oh yes I did. All my thoughts were bitter, every single stinking one of them. Shit, why was my stomach swirling? My skin felt loose on my bones. I looked over at Han. His face was older, when had he gotten old? Han wasn’t supposed to get _old_. He was supposed to live forever, that was the Han way. It was like I’d blinked and he was suddenly 20 years older. How could his aging sneak up on me like this? Fuck my head hurt. My teeth felt like they were burning.

“I don’t know why you keep doing this to yourself,” Han said gruffly. His voice was deep with sadness and disappointment. His grip was loose on the wheel as he drove down the soaked streets of Coruscant. How he’d managed to keep this heap of scrap going after all of these years was beyond me but he still drove it like it was fresh off the line. Water was lashing the windshield like buckets of water were being thrown on it. 

“I didn’t ask you to come here. Why did you even bother?” I asked through the cotton in my mouth. My throat was so dry I could feel it cracking open like dirt in the desert. I wanted to roll down the window and throw my mouth wide to let the rain wash away the dryness and the bitter taste of my father’s disappointment. Instead, I watched the street lights glitter off of the wet pavement as we passed intersection after intersection. Red, green, yellow. White and orange from street lamps. The streets always felt so alive after a storm, so beautiful and renewed. The rain washed the accumulated dirt off to reveal what was beneath and I wished then that rain could do that to me. I wished it could strip all of the bullshit I’d covered myself with over the years and leave me refreshed and pure again.

“I came to see my son, the son that I know is still in there somewhere and not hiding behind this mask you’ve put on yourself,” Han said. “I came to bring you home.”

I scoffed at that. “Home? You want me to come home? The very home you could barely stand to be in for longer than a month at a time? You want me to come home to that? To you and Mom barely speaking to one another unless it’s to whisper how much of a monster I am?” 

Lightning again. I watched as the fractal fingers spread across the violent sky. I was as high as I’d ever been and I could see each strand of light as it spread its way across the raging sky like it was in slow motion. It was so bright. No wonder ancient people thought the gods had wielded it. 

“I’m sorry if we ever made you feel that way, Ben. We tried to do our best by you and I know we failed at that. But we want you to come home. I want to see the face of my son again, not this stranger I see here. You need help, kid,” Han said softly. More lightning, closer now. Closer. It ate up the entire sky and left darkess behind it.

“Your son is dead. I killed him a long time ago. He was weak and a fool. Just like you,” I said, lolling my head over to look at him. Han closed his eyes in pain against the harshness of my words and the flashing glow of lightning lit up the interior of the car once more. The white light cast the crags of his face in sharp relief. The rain fell harder and harder around us. It was the world crying for us, for me, for this broken fucking family I had been thrown into against my will. It was crying for the happy boy who wilted away when he realized he had ruined his parents' lives before ruining his own. The rain was the tears of the world so what was the lightning? Well, that was the world’s rage.

Lightning is a fractal. I’d always like fractals. One branch spinning off into another then into another, always following the path of least resistance. That was the way of nature after all – life finding the easiest way through. I’d certainly found my easiest way through, that’s for sure. Hux had brought some Special K to the party I’d been at earlier and it made things so fucking easy. The storm may be raging outside but inside for once, for fucking ONCE, I was calm inside. I was so calm it scared me. How do people do it, dealing with the calm? How do they live without the voices screaming inside of them all day long? Was I even myself without those screams, those self-recriminations, those hateful bitter coffee thoughts? Could there ever be a world where I woke up and simply felt at peace as I brushed my teeth and made toast and popped some vitamins and went to a fulfilling job in some tasteless beige office? Would I ever know how it felt to wake up day after day and have no turmoil waiting around the corner like a reaper with a scythe wanting to cut me down? If I didn’t feel the pain inside would I even exist? Was it better to be aware of the shittiness of life or would I want to live in a world where I was blissful and unaware of the fact that life is fucking unfair? What was it like, happiness? The closest I’d ever come to it was with Rey. No, it wasn’t close, it _was._ Rey had made me happy. With Rey, the storm inside had quieted down and a different me had risen for a time, a me that strived for more so I could be who she needed me to be. That is, until I faltered under the weight of it all. Rey had been the blissful lie I had told myself so I could believe I deserved that happiness. 

“I’m being torn apart, Dad,” I whispered without even realizing I’d spoken out loud. It was the truth, however. I could feel the desire to go home deep within me. It had been buried in a place so low inside of me I hadn’t known it was still there. I just wanted to be six again and go to my room with the small bed covered in a blue quilt and snuggle into it and sleep for a thousand years. I wanted to wake up to my mother smoothing my hair back and lamenting that I needed a hair cut as the smell of breakfast wafted into my room. I wanted to be six again.

“I know, son,” Han said. His voice was heavy with sadness and regret. He sounded like the oldest human on earth. He sounded like Father Time himself.

“I just don’t want it to hurt anymore. I just want to be free of this pain,” I mumbled. Pain. Always pain. My whole life was pain and I couldn’t escape it no matter how many drugs I took or whores I fucked. My life was defined by it. Molded by it.

“I’ll help you son. With anything you need. You don’t have to work with Snoke anymore, we can protect you. He’s just using you, and when he’s done, he’ll crush you. Come home Ben,” Han said. How could I explain to him that Snoke had already crushed me long ago? He had taken the weak coal I had been and pressed me down and down until I was hardened into a diamond, a black diamond, cold and hard and sharp. I was the prize jewel in his collection of other crushed men and he would never let me go.

“I don’t know if I can,” I sobbed. Han’s face was wet with tears as he reached over and touched my face. We stared at each other for a brief moment that lasted a lifetime and I felt the tenuous warmth of finally having my father, for once, understand me. Maybe I could do it? Maybe I could finally pull off the shackles Snoke had put on me and just go _home?_ I could quit my job and throw out my suits and various pouches of drugs, I could sell that ridiculous penthouse that was a status symbol but not a home. I could find a job doing something I actually liked. I could work at a library and surround myself with the smell of aging paper and lofty thoughts. Or I could work at the aquarium and live in a world of shimmery blue with actual sharks instead of the lawyers who claimed to be them. I could run into Rey someday at the local farmer’s market or on the pier or at the theater as a functional man and she would smile at me in that warm way she always saved for me and I would smile at her and she would be so proud of me and we could finally just _be_. I could be—

Light flooded the car until my eyes drowned in it. Brakes screamed their pain to the heavens. Han ripped his hand away to yank on the wheel. There was an explosion of glass and screeching metal as the world lost its orientation. My body was a symphony of pain as I flew through glittering confetti of shattered glass. I landed with a bone-crushing smash while the car continued tumbling down into the canal next to the road. My body shuddered and heaved as my body struggled to survive against the agony. My face was on fire and blood and rain flooded my open eyes as the lighting continued to shoot across the raging sky. Yet, above all the pain and cold and wetness from the rain,I could still feel the warm imprint of my father’s hand upon my cheek. 

* * *

The world shuddered back into place.

“What the fuck was that?” I sobbed to the aether around me as if it could tell me why. I was back in the stark nothingness. That rainy road with the roaring canal beside it was gone but I could still hear it in my mind as clear as day. How could I not when it was the sound that haunted every nightmare I’d had since that night. I always dreamt of the screeching metal, the crunch of bones breaking, the shimmering glass that had danced in the air. But _this._ This had been more than just a mere nightmare. These memories had been _real_ , as real as when they happened. I could still taste the shitty beer and my father’s approval as I rode with him to the campground that held such legendary status in my mind. My young body had been free of the accumulated pains I’d collected over my thirty years, pains I hadn’t realized were so pervasive until I’d felt their absence. My knees had been ones that didn’t creak when I rose too quickly. My back didn’t twinge if I turn to my left too fast. My neck wasn’t full of tensions and kinks but free and loose with the carefree nature of childhood. I had been young again.

But then I had also felt the sickness crawling in my skin that night when I killed my father. And I had killed him. No matter how many times my mother or my therapist said differently I knew the truth. It was me. If I hadn’t been arrested that evening and my father hadn’t somehow been called to bail me out he wouldn’t have been out on that wet, dark road. If I hadn’t fucked my entire life up and had been man enough to marry Rey when I had the chance and settled down to have a couple of kids, my father would still be alive. If I had been a good person who hadn’t used drugs to numb myself, if I had _never even been born_ , Han wouldn’t have drowned while pinned to his seat by the steering column that had pierced his chest. It was all because of me. Me, the monster that had cursed their lives. And the shittiest part of it all was I only survived the accident due to the extreme relaxation the ketamine had put my body into. My drug habit saved my life that night. What a complete fucking joke.

The things I would give to go back to being that small boy in that car again, exultant at a free summer ahead (and how had I never truly appreciated the joys of summer vacations? If only I could go back in time to have a real summer again with the freedom of no bills to pay and a job to go to but only endless days of play ahead of me). That summer had been the first time I was old enough to be worthy of that lofty club of “Boys Only”. It was a club free from the eyes of mothers and sisters and aunts and all the rules that clung to them like fabric softener sheets from the dryer. The Boys Only club, that sacred, primordial bonding where the constraints of society slipped just enough to allow our cruder nature to slip out. Balls were scratched freely without shame, belches and farts were cheered and ranked. The men had a few too many beers every night but didn’t worry about their kids seeing their chaotic drunkeness and eschewed shaving their faces and wearing deodorant. Poe and I made our best _Lord of the Flies_ impersonations and spent days as little savages running through the trees. Bathing was a quick plunge into the staggeringly cold creek during the hottest part of the day. There were no recriminations from the men of “be careful” or “don’t touch that you don’t know where it’s been”. Moms always meant well for their boys but sometimes they just took the joy out of the little things. Men understood that sometimes you just needed to let loose, be wild, and be a little bit gross too. 

I began to cry. No, not just cried but blubbered until snot was pouring out of my nose and I raised my aching arm to wipe it away. I studied my arm and stared at the silvery pink scars that marred my skin. Hours had been spent by the surgeons to insert multiple pins and screws to rebuild my bones after the accident. I had spent months alone in that hospital and had refused any visitors, even Leia. I didn’t deserve her. I couldn’t face her. It was my fault Han was in that car and I couldn’t look my mother in the eyes and see the pain lingering in them. She had lost her husband because of her fuckup son getting locked up by the county after the months-long drug binge I’d been on ever since Rey had walked out on me. 

Fuck. What I wouldn’t do to see Rey now, right this second. If I had to die as an exchange to just hug her one last time I would take that bargain in a heartbeat. I would even take her how she had been the last time I’d seen her, when I had finally, _finally,_ broken her. Eyes red with unshed tears, jaw set in that stubborn way I always loved even as she broke my heart. She had stood so still and poised in the doorway of my penthouse and had looked at me with such pure sadness as I begged her not to leave me. She hadn’t said a single word but she didn’t have to. I knew what I had done, how I had continued to push her and push her until she broke against my rage and couldn’t take it anymore. She had listened to my pleas with numb nonchalance and then left. She shut the door with a decisive click behind her and just like that she was gone.

I would take that cold-eyed Rey again over this emptiness that surrounded me. She had been the last tether on my life and when she’d left I stopped giving a damn about what happened to me. I had lost the love of my life and the emptiness of my days ahead had struck me with overwhelming fear. Rather than face that loneliness I had numbed myself with drugs and let myself spin so merrily in a dance with death until Han tried one last time to save me. In the end, it cost us everything and I was beyond saving.

Why couldn’t I go back to the beginning and be that little boy again? I wanted to again be that boy so full of light and joy and filled with the desire to be good and make others happy. I wanted to go back to that trip to the mountains and hold those happy moments close to my heart. At the time I hadn’t known that trip would be one of the last happy moments I would ever have. Hindsight and all that.

The mists were threatening to swallow me up so I forced myself to get up again. My body felt slow and disconnected from my brain. I found my feet moving before my brain processed what was happening. The highway I had been on was gone and now I was on some sort of sidewalk. It was lined with dead bushes that snagged at my pants as I walked along it. I didn’t know where the path led and I didn’t care. What was the point of caring anymore? I was lost in the dark as I’d always been and would always be and that was fine. 

I walked a while, but suddenly a buzzing feeling erupted on my skin. I stumbled to a halt and felt a wave of nausea crash through me. I’d felt this buzzing feeling before. It was dread. Pure, unadulterated dread. My skin broke out in goosebumps as large as golf balls. My shoulders rose in a futile attempt to protect myself but the buzzing didn’t go away. It grew and grew until I was gasping with the effort to keep breathing. I swallowed against the sick feeling and turned to look over my shoulder.

It was a gate. It stood there some 50 yards back. The metal archway was intricately designed with twisting vines and flowers but was weathered and tarnished with age. It looked _diseased_ , like something that didn’t belong in this world. That feeling of dread was spreading from it like a poison in the air. The coiling mist didn’t even come close to it but coiled around it as if a force field surrounded it. It cradled the pathway but I couldn’t see through it. Instead of seeing the sidewalk continue into the dismal grayness and incalculable darkness stood in the center instead. It was as if the blackened sky above had a small slice taken out of it and put between that twisted metal. It was malevolent, that darkness. It was malevolent and it wanted me. It _hungered_ for me. It wanted me to walk to it, through it, to sink into the darkness and pass into whatever lived within it’s hateful heart. 

I stared without blinking for a long moment. I didn’t dare take my eyes from it. I struggled not to scream. My eyes strained and I blinked. The gate was closer now. I broke. I turned around and ran and ran and ran. I needed as much distance from it as I could manage. The path wound on and on through the mists but I didn’t care where it took me as long as it wasn’t to _it_. I didn’t stop until that heinous buzzing faded away.

The path had led me to a park full of abandoned and rusty playsets. The slide had jagged holes ripped through the surface and scraggly weeds grew from the ground in a few spots. It looked a lot like the park I had played in as a kid. There were several benches along the path that circled the play area and I sat on the closest one. I sighed and rubbed my face to push the weariness away. I was so fucking tired it was remarkable that I was still conscious. I would kill for a bath, a glass of whiskey, and then a nap. The sour scent of fear clung to me like shitty cologne and I felt disgusting.

I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I just needed to rest a little. I couldn’t find my way out of this hell-scape if I were delirious with fatigue. I just needed a moment to rest and then I could gather my wits about me. Flashing phantom shapes flashed behind my closed eyes and I sank into a weary doze. I didn’t know how long I sat there and I didn’t know if I would have the strength to open my eyes again. It took the quiet crunching of footsteps to wrench them open again.

I bolted up and looked around wildly. Was it the boy again? I tried to peer through the mist to see who it was. Sounds were starting to bleed in around me. It was the sound of a city. Cars were honking in the distance and birds were chirping around me but the sound was faded somehow, distant. The haunting echoes of children laughing bounced around me as a basketball rolled past my feet. The footsteps grew louder and closer, and then the mists parted and an obscured figure materialized from it. A wisp cleared their face and…oh…

Rey. It was her. I leaped to my feet and took a step forward. I wanted to run and gather her into my arms, but as she drew closer I realized something was off. She didn’t look like the Rey I knew today. No, this was Rey from the halcyon days of our youth. She looked to be no more than 16 or 17, which was around the age when she stopped being the girl next door and became the _girl next door_. This Rey’s body was still a bit too thin from a lifetime of neglect but her face held the charming roundness of youth. She was wearing a sunflower sundress paired with white sandals and _fuck_ she simply was the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. 

“Rey?” I called out. She didn’t respond. She didn’t even seem to notice me. She just kept walking with this small smile on her lips.

Young Rey sat down on the bench across from mine, some ten feet away. She had a ratty backpack with her and she pulled it around to open it up. She dug around for a second and triumphantly pulled out a book. _The Bell Jar_. I knew that book. I had loaned it to her as a gift when we first became friends in freshman year and she never gave it back. I didn’t mind. Not when she spoke more and more to me at school. Or when she defiantly sat next to me at lunch to the shock of her popular friends I didn’t mind when she began spending more and more time at my house and filled the emptiness of the rooms with her light. No, I didn’t mind at all. 

Ironic that a book about loneliness brought two lonely people together.

I watched her flip open to a page. Her bookmark was a ticket stub from the first movie I ever took her to. I crossed the path to stand in front but she didn't react. I waved my hand in her face. Nothing. I tried to touch her shoulder and yelped when my hand passed through her like she was made of smoke. No, this past version of Rey was inaccessible, as lost to me as she ever had been. I could never go back to those blissful days when she and I had loved one another freely and purely. I could never return to that brief time when her brightness had drowned out my darkness and made me yearn for more. 

I sighed as I walked back to my bench and contented myself with watching her read and remembering those days. She had read several pages when I felt someone settle on to the bench next to me. I gasped and whipped around in shock. It was Rey. A different Rey, the Rey of today, Rey as the wonderful, gorgeous, radiant woman she had grown into from the pretty girl sitting across from me. She was dressed in jeans and a large white sweater that looked so soft and cozy it made me want to cuddle into her and rest my head on her lap as she stroked my hair. She was smiling brightly and looking at me, really at me. She could see me. I reached a trembling hand out and lightly touched her cheek. Warm, soft flesh met my fingertips. She was real. 

_“Rey?”_ I asked incredulously.

“Hi, Ben,” she said with a beaming smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mentions of Drug Use, Car Accidents, Depression/Self-Hatred


End file.
